Standing up to increasing pressure from capitalist officials around the world — from the White House to the European Union and the United Nations — for Israel to end its war without dismantling Hamas, Israeli forces continue to strike blows against the Tehran-backed Jew-hating group in Gaza.
Israel has to keep fighting in face of Hamas’ openly declared aim to destroy Israel and kill or expel all the Jews who live there. The group has vowed to repeat anti-Jewish pogroms “again and again” — like it carried out on Oct. 7, when it killed 1,200 people, wounded 5,000 more and raped and mutilated women. It still holds some 100 hostages, including women and children, in barbaric conditions.
Decisively degrading its capacity to launch more horrific pogroms will open space for struggles by workers of all religions and nationalities for their common interests against capitalist ruling classes across the region.
On May 24, the U.N.’s International Court of Justice ordered Israel to “immediately halt its military offensive” in Rafah, falsely claiming that it was leading to genocide. Trying to portray itself as evenhanded, the court also “expressed its grave concern over the fate of the hostages,” and urged their release. But it said not one word about Hamas’ war to destroy Israel and kill Jews.
In response to the court’s ruling, the White House only said that the Joseph Biden administration’s position has been “clear and consistent.” Biden has been pressing the Israeli government for months to stop its push in Gaza.
Amped up anti-Israel propaganda
French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly, EU chief diplomat Joseph Borrell, liberal bourgeois news media and apologists for Hamas seized on civilian deaths that occurred May 26 at an encampment for displaced civilians in western Rafah to amp up their campaign blaming Israel for the death and destruction in Gaza. They repeated Hamas’ claim the deaths were the result of an Israeli bomb.
Hamas officials claim Israel deliberately targeted the camp and that 45 people died from shrapnel and a resulting fire, but there is no independent verification. Israeli army officials say the airstrike was about 200 yards from the camp. They say there is evidence that shrapnel may have struck a Hamas weapons store, setting off explosions and the blaze.
But to the liberal media and bourgeois governments around the world the facts don’t matter. The Washington Post, for example, barely mentions the Israel Defense Forces’ explanation but highlights accusations by the Hamas-run health ministry that the deaths were deliberate murder.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will investigate the incident but will not stop its operations in Rafah until it achieves its goals: dismantling Hamas, freeing the hostages, and forcing Hezbollah in Lebanon to cease its daily missile and drone attacks that have forced the evacuation of tens of thousands in northern Israel.
Israeli troops continued their offensive the next day, going after Hamas thugs hiding in tunnels, eliminating rocket launchers used to fire on civilian areas in Israel, and destroying Hamas weapons stores.
U.S. only interest: profits, influence
While the Biden administration keeps saying it is “standing by Israel,” in reality its only concern is to advance U.S. imperialism’s economic and political interests in the Middle East. To the White House, the war to defeat Hamas is a growing obstacle to those goals.
The Financial Times reported that Washington is close to a deal with the rulers of Saudi Arabia, after several years of tense relations. As part of improved ties — which Washington wants as a counter to Moscow and Beijing — Biden would lift the ban on the sale of U.S. offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, increase trade for oil and provide aid for the Saudi nuclear program. The deal would include the Saudi government moving to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.
“US officials have made clear,” the Financial Times reports, “that any deal also hinges on securing a pause in fighting in Gaza” and a “credible pathway” toward an independent Palestinian state. But today, that would mean Hamas or Hamas apologists being in charge, a permanent threat to Jews and all others in Israel, and for working people throughout the Middle East.
An Iranian nuclear bomb?
As part of its goal of destroying Israel, the bourgeois clerical regime in Iran has been enriching uranium to 60% purity, close to the 90% purity needed for making several nuclear weapons. Netanyahu has said that Tehran making a nuclear bomb is an existential threat to Israel.
Washington wants a new deal with the Iranian rulers. It opposes a proposal from London, Paris and Berlin for the International Atomic Energy Agency to pass a resolution demanding Tehran cooperate with an investigation into the regime’s advances toward building nuclear weapons.
The Iranian rulers used the funeral of President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash May 19, to bolster their efforts to expand their reactionary influence in the region and threats to destroy Israel. Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas’ political bureau, was a featured speaker at the funeral. “We affirm that Gaza will continue the resistance until the liberation of all the land,” Haniyeh said, noting the support of the Iranian regime’s leadership against “the Zionist entity.”
But that support is not shared by working people in Iran. When Iranian officials have tried to drum up support for Hamas and for the Tehran-led “axis of resistance” at soccer games, they have been jeered.
Raisi was hated by many for his key role on the counterrevolutionary regime’s committee that sentenced thousands of political prisoners to death at the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, without any pretense of a trial.
The year after Raisi’s election as president, the regime repressed mass protests over the death of Zhina Amini, a Kurdish woman who had been arrested by the hated “morality” police for not following the reactionary dress code. Some 500 protesters were killed and more than 22,000 arrested.
While the regime organized tens of thousands to attend Raisi’s funeral, some of the press in Iran noted the attendance was smaller and less enthusiastic than for funerals of other high-ranking officials.
Just a week before his death, truck drivers protesting rising costs of spare parts, scarcity of fuel and inflation in basic necessities brought their plight outside the Tehran International Book Fair May 11.
There has been no pause in working-class struggles. Retirees continue their weekly protests across the country. The Organizing Council of Oil Contract Workers reported that more than 2,000 workers had been on strike in southern Iran since May 18. The union said that “greedy contractors” wanted to freeze wages, despite the March decision by the Supreme Labor Council for a 35% increase to offset the effects of inflation.